5 minutes with… Shauna McDonagh
Shauna is a Operations and Delivery Lead at Superscript, an Insurtech based in London. She started working in project/delivery management 6 years ago (with a little break into Product Management in the middle) but before this spent many years working in various call centre departments for a major UK insurer.
This article was originally posted on LinkedIn in June 2023 and Shauna has kindly given permission for the content to be added here.
Why did you choose a career in delivery or project management?
I think like many people in delivery or project management you tend not to pick it, it picks you. I started in project management after being put forward for a short term project by my boss at the time and things snowballed from there. It wasn’t until I then got a chance to work on the software side of delivery management where I realised that this would be where I would settle and thrive. There was just something about it that kept me coming back. Watching teams grow, adapt and gain a greater understanding of themselves and each other while building great software coupled with the impact that has not only for the business itself but the end users is something that will never get old.
What advice would you give someone starting out in the industry?
People over everything, people are always your biggest and best asset. Frameworks & Certifications are great but without a good EQ level and ability to communicate with everyone not even the best framework will work. PS. Frameworks are not everything, work with the team and understand what works for them as well as the business.
Also, just go for it, take that jump and that leap of faith. When I started I knew nothing, nada, I would ask a million questions a day. That is the only way you can learn and people also learn by explaining things to you (win/win).
Have you ever worked on a particularly difficult project? Why was it rubbish/tough/hard?
If someone answers no to this question, I have no words.
I have worked on a few that have elements at times of being rubbish, tough and hard all at once but that is also where the magic happens sometimes.
I think the one that will always stick to my mind was one of my very first, it was a migration of an app built by a third party to move it in house and make it work with a 21 year old oracle system.
Little did we know about the differences in staging and prod, Database hiccups - you name it, it happened in this project.
We had a few failed releases where I had to figure out how to explain to whole departments what had happened overnight while they were peacefully sleeping.
But I would not change that experience for the world, not only is it a great icebreaker for when things go wrong, but it was a huge learning experience for not only me but the team as well. We were nearly formed, I had come in part way through the project and as rubbish, tough and hard it was some days we all really bonded and were there for each other.
What do you think are the most important skills for a delivery or project manager to have?
People & communication skills
The ability to understand how people work, what makes them tick and then multiply this into a team dynamic. But not just this, gain their trust and build your trust in them. This only happens through honest communication, asking a question and listening for their answer and probing where required not asking questions for the sake of it and already having an answer prepared.
People are people, we all have things going on outside of work - more importantly than most in our roles we have to remember this and be kind and curious, always.
Understanding when good enough, really is enough.
I have seen one too many times people/businesses pushing to get every last bit out of a team when in reality a team being predictable, happy and reliable is more important and delivers better value than a team who had a hectic 6 months with loads delivered but unhappy people with a pile of tech debt looming over them.
What do you think are the biggest challenges facing delivery and project managers today?
Having remote teams or part remote teams (depending on your organisation) can be tricky for many reasons, not least building relationships with team members and then the team building relationships with each other. Making sure that there is time for everyone to get to know each other without talking about the work and hand is vital for a well functioning team.
Expectations of the role can also vary business to business along with project or piece of work to piece of work. Knowing where you start and end is important, not only for you but for your team as well. The reason for this is you are there to enable not smother them. You want to create an environment that if you were taking extended time off (eventually) there would be no gaps as the team becomes self sufficient.
What projects would you have loved to have been involved in?
I would have loved to have been involved in the early early days of AI projects, although there is a long way to go with it. I think being there at the start of the journey and being able to see the decisions being made, how they were made and why. It is such a powerful tool if used in the right way (and trained in the right way).
This post is part of a services called ‘5 minutes with’ series of articles from people in the delivery management and project management space.